How Necessary is a Calorie Deficit After All?

most of the people on ketogenic diet actually ate less than they thought so they consumed fewer calories

wellmindnessOctober 28, 201511:49 am

There have been words about losing fat on a ketogenic diet, and losing it without making a caloric deficit. You will have to have some kind of inherent ‘calorie deficit’ or even with ketosis that will cause fat losing, but without lowering calories.

If you want to make an inherent caloric deficit, you can do it in a few ways, such as loss of ketones in the urine and breath. But, even these ways aren’t enough, because you will lose only about 100 calories in one day. This will not significantly cut your weight.

Because ketones have 4.5 Cal/gram and free fatty acids have 9 Cal/gram, more fat is used to provide same energy. Let me explain. If you want to provide 45 calories, that would require about 10 grams of ketones, and that pulls breakdown of 10 grams of free fatty acids in the liver and opposite to that there are only 5 grams of free fatty acids if you used them head on. So, on the generation of ketones extra 5 grams are used.

This losing can happen only in the first several weeks of a ketogenic diet, when energy is taken from tissues and not from the brain. Tissue is providing a large amount of energy, from ketones. After that, only the brain is providing energy from ketones. Because both ketones and glucose have similar calories per gram, it is hard to notice the bigger weight loss. Although, many people say they have lost weight in the first few weeks, this is not scientifically confirmed

It may sound weird, but some people also have reported that they ate a lot more on a ketogenic diet, but they didn’t gain as much weight as they expected. This is strange, but it can happen because excess fat is lost as excess ketones, and it wasn’t stored in the body. These people noted that when eat a lot of calories urinary ketone level are much deeper when measured by Ketostix ™. Of course, there is a breaking point for everything, and at that point the body will store the excess fat.

Maybe the highest point of numerous low-carbohydrate diets is the saying that you can eat as much protein and fat you like and you will still lose weight. This thought was misused by nutritionist because they claimed that you can still use weight and eat as much as you want. American Medical Association (AMA) criticized the idea that a ketogenic diet can break the natural laws of the body. It is impossible to eat unlimited amounts of food and still lose weight.

The truth is that most of the people on ketogenic diet actually ate less than they thought so they consumed fewer calories. Studies have shown that when subjects are told to eat unlimited amounts of food, they actually restrict themselves to about 1400-2100 calories.